Inspirational Snarky

   
     If you've been following Mr. Snarky for long, you know he doesn't need much of an excuse to skip blogging, and much less of one to skip working on one of the zillion unfinished writing projects sitting on his hard drive. That's why it should come as no surprise that sitting around watching Netflix and Prime shows, and barely interacting with any other humans besides family, has not exactly been conducive to coming up with any snarky, funny posts.

Well WAY back in March, the answer to this question was:
Everything!

     Well, now that we've been stuck at home for weeks, watching shows has grown a little old. I'm down to only 6 hours a day now. Honestly though, it was pretty bad for a while. I'm not a binge watcher of any one show; I just watch one episode and then to switch to a different show, and then another. It's kind of the way my whole life has always been. I'm always running behind and never seem to finish much of anything, although I'm getting close to finishing Dexter. I hope it has an amazing finale!

Okay, I lied. I'm getting close to finishing it the 2nd time.

    Watching the news has never been a favorite pastime of Mr. Snarky's, but right now, it's even worse. I don't know how some of you watch/listen to that stuff all day long. I just can't. It's too depressing. I end up getting most of my news from the internet, or social media. I'm very careful not to believe everything there of course.

     The thing that's gotten me lately is the number of celebrity deaths. Every day on Social Media I see that one or two celebs have been died. Some have been corona related, and some not. And then I scroll and read about a 30 something nurse or doctor who died, and someone's grandmother who died alone, and it was depressing me even more. It should be depressing. Awful things are happening. So I stopped reading about it, and just hid away in my TV shows. And then, as I said, that got old. 

     A few days ago, I decided to buy a book that I've been wanting. It's called, The Wax Pack, by Brad Balukjian. As I said a few posts ago, one of the things I'm missing the most in this sort of post-apocalyptic world is Baseball. You can tell me there are WAY more important things in life right now, and you're right. It's an escape for me, and many of us are in dire need of some other form of escapism. However, that is not why I am bringing it up here, even though I heartily recommend you click the link and get yourself a copy. 

     The author, who by the way is a great follow on Twitter @waxpackbook, was at an Oakland A's game, remembering how he loved baseball cards when he was a kid, and decided to buy a pack from 1986, open it, track down every player inside, interview them, and write about it and the road trip he'd have to take to get it done. Right then and there, he just said, "That's it. I'm doing this!" And here we are, 5 or 6 years later, and due to a LOT of planning, hard work, and belief in himself, his idea is now a reality.

The Wax Pack©2020 by Brad Balukjian

Yes, I know I'm not being very Snarky today. Get over it.    

    So, what's your point, Mr. Snarky? Thanks for asking. I'll tell you. I've always been an idea man without enough follow through. I tend to get bored and move on to another project that never seems to get finished. However, the combination of seeing how uncertain life is these days and seeing this man's idea turn into a published work right before my eyes, (from a distance on Twitter, but still) has motivated me, inspired me, and excited me. 

     For about six months, or maybe more, I've been kicking around an idea for a television pilot. I truly think it has great potential. I've just been sitting on it though. True to form, I have lots of ideas for the show, and several of them written down, but not turned into a script. I've had most of my opening scene written for weeks, but that's all. I'm here to tell you, my friends, family, and whoever may happen to stumble upon this blog, that I'm done kicking it around. I am done thinking that it's (or I'm) not good enough. I'm writing this sucker and not stopping until I have something finished. I believe in this idea, and even if I don't become the next Vince Gilligan or Damon Lindelof, at least I'll know that I gave it my best.

    

That's it for now.

I'll be snarkier next time.

Unless I'm not.

It's my blog. Nyah!

Be Well.

Love, Snarky

   

Mr. Snarky comes back to help during this crisis

   
     It's been almost three years since Mr. Snarky made his last appearance, and if you have been with the blog long-term, you might remember that the last post was the 30th in a string of 30 straight days of posting. At the time, Mr. Snarky said that he thought that all that posting would get him to a place where he posted a lot more frequently than he had in years past. Well, you can see that worked out really well, right?

     Now, at that time, Donald Trump had been president for only a couple of months. and as you might have heard, there is another election coming up this November. The world has changed a bit since then. You may have heard about that as well. Now, I'm not here to talk about whether Trump is good, or bad, whether we're overreacting or not... in fact, I vow right now that after this paragraph, I will not talk about Trump or the coronavirus. Mr. Snarky has his own political beliefs, but doesn't ever want to use this platform to discuss them. You, kind reader, can find more than enough sites on the internet that praise Trump, or condemn him, and my commentary in those matters will not change anyone's mind.

     Why then, are you here, Mr. Snarky? What can you do to make my life better? Well, dear reader, I'm so glad you asked. I am here, writing to you, to hopefully help you to forget about the fact that you might be locked in a house with no baseball, basketball, hockey, Olympics, or even Scripps Spelling Bee. I'm here to make you forget you haven't been able to go to a bar or restaurant, and that the only place you've met any new potential partners is on pornhub.

Oh My

     What? No, Mrs. Snarky. I didn't know what that site was until Jimmy Kimmel just mentioned it on that YouTube video we watched a few minutes ago.


     Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. Why I'm here. My plan, over the next weeks/months or however long it is that we're stuck in our homes, is to try to post as often as possible, something fun, funny, interesting, and/or distracting. I'll be as apolitical as possible, although that's getting harder and harder all the time when seemingly everything is political. We need to keep ourselves sane, and you can only watch so much Netflix/Hulu/Prime Video/HBO Go before you start losing your mind. Please share in the comments section, just what it is you're doing to stay sane. I'd love to see lots of links to videos, games you're playing with your partner or kids, or just anything amusing at all. I'll be here, doing my job, my eating/sleeping/chatting/everything, all under this same roof. I hope I don't make Mrs. Snarky want to kill me.

     AND, in the interest of fairness....

Eww, am I right?

Much love to all... and stay healthy out there.

BTW, I don't smoke anymore. YAY ME! and my beard is pretty much all gray, but I'm still...

Mr. Snarky!
Love you guys.

Random Thoughts and Things

    First off, I want to thank all of you who have been with me for the past 30 days. I truly appreciate you taking the time to check out this page. It was my intention to resurrect this blog, and if I hadn't been getting many hits, I may have quit after a week or so. You all helped me to push through. I sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart.

    I saw a can of Chunky Soup today at work. No, that's not all. The label read, "Win a trip to Super Bowl 50!" Considering that Super Bowl 51 was played in February, I bought the soup and have entered the contest. When I win, I plan on betting my life savings on the Broncos.Who knew that Campbell's Soup company has a time machine?

This one is for Becki

    I hate the saying, "Haters Gonna Hate." It's stupid. If God hadn't intended for me to hate anything, he wouldn't have invented the Yankees. Or Katy Perry songs.

    I don't understand why hair grows practically everywhere on my body except for the palms of my hands, the bottom of my feet, and the top of my head. Why can't male pattern baldness be on the back of our necks or on our butts instead of on our heads? Huh? Why?

    I worked for a few hours today, then was asked if I could go home for a while and work later because someone quit with no notice today. I readily agreed so I could go home and take a nap, which I did. Now my question is, why am I always ALWAYS so tired?

Exactly. WHY???

   

I know, right?

    In case you were wondering, the Cubs defense of their World Series title begins Sunday. I just thought I'd throw that out there because it's the first time in my lifetime that I could say that and not be lying.

    While we're on baseball, my White Sox will probably not be mathematically eliminated from the playoffs until September, but they may as well just get it over with now. I'm looking forward to seeing some of their new young players, but it will be a while before they are competing for a playoff spot.

    I was hoping that I'd have an awesome post planned out by the time I got home, but no... I'm finishing my 30 days straight with this marvelousnous tonight. Whoop de doo!

    Well, that's about it. I'm pretty pleased with myself for making it the full 30. I'm sure that I'll be back to share more exciting stories with you. I'm also sure that I won't do it every day, but that should mean that I'll only post when I have something decent to blog about. I'd recommend that everyone should challenge themselves into doing something like this, or another venture that they'd like to try. I realize that not everyone wants to blog and/or share it with others, and that's okay. But you could simply write in a journal for yourself to peruse.

   Yeah. Why not?

Thanks again. Love you guys!

Snarky

P.S., If anyone out there wants to start a blog and doesn't know how, you can comment here, or email me at realmistersnarky@gmail.com and I'll help you get it going.

My Penultimate Post For March

    I have a love affair with the English language. It's a mess, true... but it's our mess. The British may think they speak it properly, but this is the U.S.A. and we do everything better! At least that's what they teach us in school. I'm assuming they teach the same thing in other countries. The whole, our country is the best in the world thing. Anyway, less than a paragraph in and I'm already off topic. If you know Mr. Snarky in real life, you might be wondering when he's actually on topic. Mr. Snarky lives in the margins. It's where I find a lot of my best material.

    Anyway (which I've learned from the past month is one of my favorite words) (does the comma go before the parentheses or after?), <-- I'll just put it over there... ANYWAY, The English Language. It is the illegitimate love child of ALL the other languages. Like how a word sounds in Spanish? No worries, just steal it.

    I'm not sure when or where my love affair with words began, but I'm fairly sure it will stay with me for life, or until dementia sets in, God forbid. My mother was an executive secretary... (But was she? She was a Mother, Wife, Sister, American, Aunt, and lots of other things. She only worked as a secretary) ... back in the day before Google or auto correct. Back when you used a dictionary if you couldn't spell a word. She was an incredible speller and typist. She could run circles around me on the typewriter, and I'd assume, would whip me in a spelling bee as well. My father worked in Finance, but he also wrote plays and short stories, and he often told me, "Son, you think in English, don't you? If you learn the art of language, couldn't it be assumed that you'd be a better thinker?

I don't care about smarts. Just SHOW ME THE MONEY!

   I've always thought that punctuation was very important, but not as critical as the content. I think perhaps I use a few too many ... when I lose my train of thought, rather than fixing (and maybe I use parentheses too often as well. I dunno. I think if you forget what the point of the sentence before the parenthesis came in, that's probably a bad thing, don't you think?) the sentence right then and there or else in rewrite. As I said though, punctuation can be hugely important.

As a Grandpa, I agree with the latter statement.

    Looking at my keyboard, and thinking about how so many incredible works of literature were created by these 26 letters and the assorted punctuation marks, it truly blows my mind. Everything from "War and Peace," to "A Tale of Two Cities," to the all-time classic, "Everyone Poops," came from this random assortment of symbols. Pretty incredible if you ask me. 

Books can save lives too! This one could come in handy.

    Anyway...(  )

Good Night!

Meester Snarky

P.S. Want a good laugh? Scroll down to the customer reviews on this page. Want to cry? Look how much the thing is selling for.

P.P.S. Did you think I'd tell you what penultimate means? Think again. But I'll make it easy for you. Click here if you want to know what it means. If you already know, good for you! Mr. Snarky is proud of you. 

 

   

27 Down, 3 To Go

    It's really been an interesting month for me. Some days, posting to this blog has been simple. Others, I've had absolutely no thoughts on what to do, and I think it shows. My best posts have all been on days when I sat down and knew right away what I wanted to talk about. If it were always that easy, I'd keep this up forever. Unfortunately, it's RARELY that easy. Although it's usually difficult, and some days near impossible, I'm very happy I've been doing this, and happier still that some of you have come along with me and read every day. Thank you! Sincerely.

    The plan is, after my 30th straight day of posting, which will be this Friday, I will take a few days off. I'm hoping that this past month will bring me back to posting regularly on this page.

    I have very little to talk about tonight because of something else filling up the creative spaces in this goofy head of mine. An old friend and I are working on a joint project. I told him I wanted to wait until the end of the month so I could focus on this for three more days, but he is excited, and excitement can be very contagious.

He's so excited... and he just can't hide it.

    I don't want to share what we're working on for several reasons, not least among them being that if it never gets off the ground, I won't have to feel bad about it. I think it will though. It could be a ton of fun.

    Lastly, I should be hearing about the Onion audition within the next 2 weeks. I'll keep you posted.

Love yas!

 

Mr. Snarky

The Curse of the Snarky

    Spring is in the air. One of my favorite days of the year is right around the corner. Major League Baseball's opening day. That's right, Rachel... this is another sports post. Yay sports! I started loving baseball when I was just a little bitty Snarky - just barely out of diapers, and still peeing the bed. Mrs. Snarky is glad I quit THAT habit a few years ago. My father told me that even as a very small guy, when I heard the Star Spangled Banner, I'd come running into the living room and jump on his lap to watch a ball game. With him, it was always the Chicago White Sox. It didn't matter that they were lousy... these were our guys. Jorge Orta, Ken Henderson and Wilbur Wood. Guys like that were who we rooted for. They usually had zero chance against players like Reggie Jackson or Nolan Ryan. The big name guys would always whip our butts. Didn't matter to us back then... at least not enough to make us quit watching, or to do the unthinkable - switch over to the Cubs.

Even thinking about it freaks me out     

    Through thick and thin we stuck it out. There were a few good years (1977, 1983, 1993, 2000) and lots of bad ones (I'm not actually putting anything in here... I just thought I needed more parentheses). In '77, they played well for most of the year and it was the first time I ever thought they had a chance to make the playoffs. The other 3 years, they made the playoffs, but never advanced past the first round. All through those years, I rooted for my White Sox first, Red Sox second, and Cubs third. As a Chicagoan, I was expected to pick one of our home teams as my favorite, and the other as my least favorite. Love the Sox, hate the Cubs, or vice versa. I never did hate the Cubs though. Two of my brothers and my mother were Cub fans, and most of my friends were as well. Now as you probably know, the Cubs had similar results as the White Sox did. Known as the lovable losers, the Cubs were the "Nice guys" who finished last. Until 2003, when they were within 5 outs of making it to the World Series. Then, the unthinkable happened. They blew it. If you want to know more, click that link. For the benefit of my Cub fan friends, I won't go into detail here. Let's just say that I hurt for my brothers and friends after what happened. I hurt for the fan who played a part in the collapse, whether it was his fault or not (I say not, but that's a story for another day). It was sad.

    Then, 2004 happened. The Red Sox, my aforementioned 2nd favorite team, beat the Yankees, my most hated team, by winning four straight after being down three games to zip, a feat that had never been accomplished in Major League history. They went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, breaking an 85 year drought. If they could do it, who knows?

    It didn't take long to find out. 2005 was a most wondrous year to be a White Sox fan. They had the best record in baseball from the beginning of the season all the way to the end. They went through the playoffs with 11 wins and just 1 loss, tying the 1999 Yankees record for best winning percentage in this era. By winning the Series, they ended an 87 year drought. I was happy that I got to root my team to a Championship, but mostly, I was happy for my father, who had been a fan of the team since the 1940's and had never before gotten to see this...

I broke down and cried with joy for my Daddy when this was happening.

    2016. You may have heard, but I'll tell you anyway. The Chicago Cubs won the World Series. It had looked like they were going to blow it for a bit, but they did it in dramatic fashion, ending their own 108 year Championship drought. Even though I lost a bet on them winning it all, I was happy for so many people that I'd grown up with getting to see their Cubbies take home the big trophy. My friends will attest that I was not remotely unhappy as many of my fellow Sox fans were. I was thrilled for my brothers, one of whom was probably near a heart attack while watching these games.

    That's over. I've heard lots of cockiness coming from Cub fans lately. Granted, mostly just on social media, but still. I read on a bulletin board that the Sox WS win was so long ago that it doesn't even count anymore. Right. And if the Cubs had won in 2003 and the Sox had won 2 years ago (same time difference) would you have said that the Cubs win didn't count anymore? I don't think so. Nope. I'm done rooting for the Cubs. They won't ever overtake the Yankees as my least favorite team, but now that you've gotten your Curse of the Billy Goat out of your system, I kind of hope you don't win another Series for 40 years. Is that terrible? Yeah, a little. Don't care.

Congrats on the World Series win.

Never do it again!

Snarky




   

I'm Sorry, What?

    A few years ago, one of the young Snarkys was working in a call center for a major mobile phone provider. I didn't want one. A cell phone, that is. I didn't want a call center either, but that's beside the point. She said, "I can get you a phone and a line practically for free!" It didn't take too much arm twisting, and the next thing you knew, I had a smart phone. I was happy, but at the same time very UNhappy about it.

    For one thing, I hated the idea of anyone being able to reach me at any time. I like some quiet time. EVERY DAY. My brain needs it. My soul needs it. It's good for me to recharge and helps me feel more creative. The second, much bigger factor was this - I know myself... very well in fact. I've had hand held video games, TV video games, Computer games, all of which I've been addicted to at one time or another. I grew up plopping quarters galore into arcade games. I have a bit of a problem.

Just one more game, and I'm going to bed. I gotta beat this level!

    I don't play games like that any more because I know I'll develop a problem again. I get too wrapped up in them and will ignore everything else I'm supposed to do. But what do you know? The phone has games you can get for free! Oh, that's great!

Yeah, maybe NOT so great.

    So I downloaded and played most of the major phone games for a while, and it was fun, but I'm surprised Mrs. Snarky didn't divorce me, or at least hide my phone from me. I've given most of the games up, but I am still one of those guys who I didn't want to be. You know the one. You can't ever have a real conversation with him/her because they are constantly checking their phone.

Ouch!

 

    I try not to be "THAT GUY" but it's hard. I hate it.  But there's always news and sports scores and oh yeah, checking how many hits last night's blog post had, and going through to make sure you saw what's going on on Facebook and Twitter and maybe my favorite YouTubers have put up new videos and I need to... I need to put down the damned phone and just enjoy my life for a little while. Jeeeeez!

I think I'm gonna sit down and talk with Mrs. Snarky before bed.

Right after I check my fantasy Hockey team.

Oh, and see if there's any notifications on Facebook and...

Oh crap. Here we go again.

 I'm sorry, what? I was checking something.